Shear Buckling Resistance of GFRP Plate Girders
Publication: Journal of Composites for Construction
Volume 15, Issue 3
Abstract
Thin webs of glass-fiber-reinforced polymer (GFRP) girders are sensitive to shear buckling, which can be considered an in-plane biaxial compression-tension buckling problem, according to the rotated stress field theory. An extensive experimental study was performed, which shows that an increasing transverse tension load significantly increases the buckling and ultimate loads caused by a decrease in the initial imperfections and additional stabilizing effects. The stacking sequence also greatly influenced the buckling behavior. Higher bending stiffness in the compression direction increased the buckling and ultimate loads, while higher bending stiffness in the tension direction changed the buckling mode shape. The general solution obtained using the Fok model accurately modeled the experimental results, while the simplified solution (modified Southwell method) provided accurate results only at higher tension loads.
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Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank the Swiss Innovation Promotion Agency CTI (Grant No. UNSPECIFIED9121.1-PFIW-IW) and industry partners Scobalit Composites, Winterthur, Switzerland, and Ernst Basler and Partner AG, Zurich, Switzerland, for their support of this project, and the EPFL Laboratory of Applied Mechanics and Reliability (LMAF) for use of their biaxial testing system.
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Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Composites for Construction
Volume 15 • Issue 3 • June 2011
Pages: 431 - 440
Copyright
© 2011 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Mar 25, 2010
Accepted: Aug 25, 2010
Published online: Aug 31, 2010
Published in print: Jun 1, 2011
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